Prize checking is very important, but DO NOT CHECK EVERY SINGLE PRIZE CARD. Even if it’s game 1 you don not want to waste a bunch of valuable time deducing your 6th prize card. Just check the important stuff for the match. For example in mew, Pokémon are important , but you probably don’t need to worry about quick ball or battle vip pass. And sometimes power tablets are important but against something like lost box you dont need to worry too much about them.
That's fair, i think if your learning to prize check at home you should get in the habit of checking for all six but in competitive play just check important stuff yes 🙏
Hey Ryan :) I like to know the exact probability distribution of the cards I can draw when I take a knockout personally - influences decision making a lot
@@BurtsPTCG with the controversies about the prize checking being considered slow play right now. this bad habit response didnt age well haha. even top players taking 5-7 mins to prize check.
7:06 The biggest thing I learned from this video is that there's resources like this to make it easy to print proxies of whole decks!! I'm only just getting back into the game after many years, so I don't have many copies of the staples, never mind the cards unique to each deck. Definitely a resource I'll be coming back to as I continue to work on my own builds and tweak what I've already got.
Great video! Something that helped me early on is not burning up resources too early or stacking your bench too early if it isn't necessary for the deck I'm playing.
My top 3 tips are as follows... The best tip to give is to play along the meta. Rogue decks are generally not strong enough to constantly and consistently contend with the top threats. They are fun for local play or getting quick wins in a best of 1, but at a regionals it likely isn't the right call. Another tip is to make sure the decks that are being tested against are meta. Some lists have some jank in it or just are suboptimal lists. Sometimes the player piloting the deck might not be super familiar with the win conditions of the deck either. The last tip is practice only your chosen deck and only make small changes at a time if needed. that won't hurt the core engine or consistency of the deck. This last tip is crucial because most of the winning lists you will see from regionals are just 1 or 2 modified cards from an existing and well known list.
Legit taking tips 2 and 3 every day since I’ve been playing zard ex on ptcgl. Deck went from that basic ptcgl list, to now it looking almost like 1st places lists minus 1-2 cards. Testing in causal mode has helped me understand more of what the deck can do, & it also helps when you misplay since you can learn from those. Great tips 🙌🏻
Thank you for continuing to create these super useful and well thought out video essays. As someone reasonably new to the competitive Pokemon TCG scene, your content has been amazing, and I feel it's had a hand in me improving. I hope to see you at EUIC to thank you in person! Much love, and I hope you keep creating content like this in the future 💙
The not practicing enough. Something I learn from playing poker with friends is no matter how bad your hand is, play it out because you never know the outcomes. I see many players who start out with a bad hand or have a bad turn 1-2 and they scoop. Don't do it. Play it out. If you never noticed, Japanese players never scoop, they play every hand and every game till the end because you never know if you will top deck a card or if your opponent will misplay. Practice every hand combination out there and play to the best of your abilities.
That last tip gave me flashbacks to when I was in elementary school, except I used to play my decks against myself just because I had no one to play with since I didn't have an LGS. 😅
Something else to add for testing and deck building is Tord's classic advice. For every single card changed you sold to run 30 games to actually be able to evaluate its effect. Obviously for more casual players this is a bit much but generally sticking to only changing one card at a time between sessions is important. Otherwise you will end up easily losing track of your deck's consistency and gameplan if you are constantly making changes between games.
One idea for you. Could you make a video advising on how to handle tournaments? There’s a big difference between playing with yourself or fiends, and playing in timed events with multiple rounds. A list of good habits to get into / things you can do to give yourself the best chance at succeeding at events giving CP would be really appreciated.
Fantastic, fantastic video. You’re really doing a service to newer players with this. I’ve been playing on PTCGO for years, but I’m hoping to go to some local tournaments in Scarlet and Violet, so this is super helpful.
This is gonna help me a lot with major events moving forward and especially proxying 2 decks and playing them at the same time ,I know people have told me this in digimon as well Imma have to start doing this probably when the new season of pokemon starts over , awesome video brotha
I scribble down during play what appears to be missing from my deck, then add it in next game for something that I never seem to use, sometimes it makes no difference but occasionally adding say an extra Basic Energy card or whatever it may be improves the deck dramatically, it's well worth a fiddle, but I don't recommend massive changes all in one go, I am sure you already do this mate like with writing down your prizes, but for others reading scribbling down something like: (Escape Rope instead of Switch) on a bit of paper then giving it a try to see if the disruption pays off, or (Deck needs a Roseanne to get my Tool, Special Energy and Stadium back) sometimes works wonders, it's a real useful way to improve your existing decks especially rogue ones which is what I tend to play Bellsprout #1!
Yeah the 1st one is now a contriversy where players are now spending 5-7 minutes of prize checking taking almost 1/3 of the play time on thier first turns. which is basicly intentional slow play
I think a good tip is to always have a gameplan every turn and what cards you need to accomplish said plan. This keeps you from randomly playing cards just because you can play them as well as finding the right pokemon at the right time with a search card or attaching an energy to the right pokemon. I'm new to the game and a lot of the time I will not have a follow up for next turn because I burned cards I really shouldn't have.
@@BurtsPTCG Exactly! I'm trying to take things more slowly. I guess I may put unnecessary pressure on myself to play fast though because I don't want the other player to get upset at me for taking my time to make decisions. Nevertheless I have a long road of improvement ahead of me which I'm excited about. Btw, thanks for being active in the comment section, taking the time to read and reply to us and providing us with quality content!
Great video man, I want to start getting more competitive with my playing so these tips are really good to know. I am a huge slacker when it comes to prize checking so I need to get on that lol. Keep up the amazing work man, your videos are always so awesome.
I feel the second one... In day 2 of utrecht I had a flower select where I had to decide between comfey and forest seal stone. I take the seal stone, bench my lumineon v and try to use seal stone... BUT I HAD ALREADY USED MY VSTAR POWER... if I had taken comfey instead I woudlve had game with the Kyogre combo which wouldve given me the 2-0 W. Cause we were short on time, the Match ended in a draw, while if I had just looked at my vstar marker I wouldve known what to do and what not to Do...
@@BurtsPTCG I’ll check it out. I’m wanting to build a deck but I’m leaning towards buying a store bought one first to learn. Your videos are awesome and very informative. As I mentioned I typically like going against the meta and giving folks a hard time lol.
Where are the European competitions streamed? I watch the US competitions here on RU-vid, but the time difference can suck, so if prefer to watch the European competitions instead. Thanks.
Going to fort wayne as my first tournament in 10 years - is there bm rules on prize checking? Sorting every card feels like my turn would take 4 minutesish, or is it just practice?
Replace the tedious notepad writing with single symbols for each card. Count the cards in each category while searching to know what you are missing. For most decks, a full search is not necessary. See where you can cut corners to save time and energy. Items for example can be checked later in the game in most decks
Nope but a judge may request to read them so they have to be legible. So no codewords or anything like that. As a rule of thumb i just write down my prize cards and any weird cards i see my opponent play 🙏
My biggest issue is testing/playing on TCG Live, and I will have 5+ games in a row where I absolutely tank my starting hand, and will dead draw for the game, mean while my opponent is having the time of their life finding everything they need :( Makes me think their draw algorithm isn't particularly good, or is it just me?
@@BurtsPTCGthe first search you get 2 minutes before it's slow play. But after the first search it's only 15 seconds. So if you don't take too long, it should actually be safer to do it all on the first search in big events.
